John Scott, Earl of Clonmel

Scott, John, Earl of Clonmel, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, an Irish lawyer, who, in the latter part of the 18th century amassed a large fortune, and from obscurity raised himself to some of the highest offices in the state. Mr. FitzPatrick has devoted a portion of his Ireland before the Union to the not very profitable history of Lord Clonmel. He died 23rd May 1798. Barrington says he was "courageous, vulgar, humorous, artificial; he knew the world well, and he profited by that knowledge. He cultivated the powerful; he bullied the timid; he fought the brave; he flattered the vain; he duped the credulous; and he amused the convivial. Half liked, half reprobated, he was too high to be despised, and too low to be respected. His language was coarse, and his principles arbitrary; but his passions were his slaves, and his cunning was his instrument. He recollected favours received in his obscurity, and in some instances had gratitude to requite the obligation; but his avarice and his ostentation contended for the ascendancy; their strife was perpetual, and their victories alternate." Sheil writes of "the matchless imperturbability of front to which the late Lord Clonmel was indebted for his brazen coronet." His mansion in Harcourt-street, Dublin, now divided into two houses, has given his name to a street opposite.

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